The Cast-Off Kids

by Trisha Merry

  ‘They say Gilroy is schizophrenic.’

  ‘Really?’ I was shocked. ‘But I thought it was only older teenagers . . .’

  ‘Usually, yes. But Gilroy is an unusual case.’

  ‘I knew something was badly wrong, but I never thought of schizophrenia.’

  ‘And that’s not all,’ added Des. ‘But I’ll tell you more about that on Monday.’ He paused. ‘Do you think you can manage him until then?’

  ‘We’ll do our best. But what’s happening on Monday?’

  ‘We’re having a meeting about Gilroy’s future placement. His needs are too great for a foster home, even your home, Trisha. You and Mike have been marvellous with him, especially taking him on holiday with you all.’

  ‘He wasn’t much trouble at all on holiday. He really enjoyed it.’

  ‘Well I’m glad he did. But I might as well tell you now – I’m afraid the experts fear that he is becoming psychotic and he needs to be in a secure unit where he can have treatment. It will be best for him and it will be best for your other children too.’

  ‘Yes,’ I sighed. ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Don’t tell Gilroy himself yet, but we will try to find him an immediate placement and take him away on Monday afternoon if we can. Not a word to anyone except Mike, until I confirm it after the meeting.’

  ‘I didn’t know children could become schizophrenic so young,’ I said to Mike, after the children were all in bed.

  ‘Well, he’s eight now.’

  ‘Yes, just a child. A boy who should be carefree and curious, mischievous and kind to animals – that’s what most eight-year-olds are. Look at Paul. He’s no angel, just a typical, boisterous, lovable boy. Poor Gilroy. I don’t think anybody could call him lovable right now. But he is, underneath.’

  ‘And we love him,’ agreed Mike. ‘So did Des say what they are going to do? Will he have to take medication or something?’

  I told him what Des had told me: that in the experts’ opinion, Gilroy wasn’t well enough or safe enough to be in a foster home, and that they were having a meeting on Monday about where they should place him. By Monday evening, he might no longer be part of our foster-family.

  I thought about Gilroy a lot over the next forty-eight hours. Had we failed him in some way? Could we have done anything to prevent this happening? I kept looking at the clock on Monday, while the children were at school. I felt mean that I’d driven Gilroy there with the rest of them, without his having any idea that his future was in the balance. I watched him kicking at their ankles as they went into the school yard, while they tried in vain to protect themselves. I knew it had to be, but I did feel profoundly sad about him and about his future.

  I wondered whether his mother knew yet. Surely she must have been told as well, or were they going to wait until after the meeting? After all the chaos and upset she’d caused, she was forbidden to come to our house or to contact us in any way, and vice versa. She could only see Gilroy under supervision at the family centre, and I couldn’t remember the last time that had happened. At least a year ago, I thought.

  Des had said he would ring me after the meeting, and I knew that wouldn’t be till at least lunchtime. The afternoon dragged on, the children came home on the school bus and the usual happy chaos took over, albeit with evident tension among the children, who were always wary of Gilroy.

  It wasn’t until half past five, when I assumed it was too late to hear anything, that the phone rang. I rushed out to the hall to pick it up.

  As soon as I recognised Des’s voice, I was apprehensive. ‘Has anything been decided?’ I asked him.

  ‘Yes. That’s why it took all day. It was a unanimous decision this morning, but it took all day to find the right placement within reach for his mother to visit.’

  ‘Well, she hasn’t seen him for months!’ I pointed out.

  ‘I know, but we all agreed that we must encourage her to visit him there, as part of his therapy. It’s a good place – a well-respected home, about thirty miles away,’ said Des. ‘It’s too late this evening, so I’ll come and pick him up first thing tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, I think we should break it to him together, so that he doesn’t just blame you and Mike. Would it be all right if I come over in about half an hour?’

  Des duly came and I brought Gilroy into the sitting room, while the others played in the playroom. Edie and Frank had kindly come over to sit with them, which was a treat for all the children, who adored our lovely neighbours.

  So Des, Mike and I sat with Gilroy and calmly explained to him together what was going to happen and that it was because we all wanted to help him.

  ‘I don’t want any help!’ He yelled at us. ‘You’re all f****** b*******!’

  It wasn’t an easy evening, with him swearing and kicking off all over the house. We had to separate him from the others and put a mattress in the babies’ room, which was empty now. I sat like a sentry outside the door until he finally fell asleep. I don’t know what I would have done if he’d attacked me with the matches or a blade, but I managed to handle his efforts to get past me, and I had the bruises to prove it.

  Later I found out that when Gilroy went into the home, they put him on some very heavy medication. He was just eight, and they dosed him up with this very strong drug that apparently turned him into a zombie. He moved around very slowly, slurred his speech and lost all his energy. I suppose they thought that would help, but it sounded very drastic to me. I was so sad to think of him, or any child, in that state.

  It was only after Gilroy left that I realised how frightened all the children had been of him, and now, at last, they were able to relax. It was a huge release of tension and anxiety for us too – we could all feel safe again. Yet I had a lingering sense of guilt that we hadn’t been able to sort him out. He’d been with us for a long time, and I did miss the funny boy he was when he first joined our family.

  20

  Sex on the Rockery

  ‘Can you take a teenager?’ asked the social worker on the phone. ‘She’s fifteen and needs a temporary placement till she turns sixteen.’

  ‘Yes, OK,’ I sighed, wondering what I was taking on. I should have stopped and thought about it at least. We’d never had a teenager before. The eldest of our current children were ten-year-old AJ, nine-year-olds Ronnie and Sheena, plus Daisy who was a mature eight. I had no experience of teenagers at all.

  I prepared what had been our box room, full of junk, to be a single room for this teenager. I didn’t even know her name yet. I had twenty-four hours’ notice, so Mike and the four older ones helped me to empty the room, then find and move some bits of furniture. Mike took the rubbish down to the tip, then bought a bed base and headboard at the second-hand shop, a new mattress and some tins of paint, and brought them all back in the van. We spent the evening painting the room and just had time to air it the next morning.

  The social worker brought round this sullen-faced girl with a Cilla Black hairdo and cheap but trendy clothes that didn’t leave a lot to the imagination. She twirled a lock of her hair and barely gave us a glance as they came in.

  ‘This is Tracey,’ said the social worker. ‘She’s on a temporary care order till her sixteenth birthday.’

  ‘Hi Tracey,’ I said in my usual cheery voice. She turned her head in a condescending way and ran her gaze down my long and wayward ginger curls, and my Laura Ashley skirt.

  ‘The hippy look is out now,’ she muttered, with evident disapproval.

  ‘Not with me!’ I laughed. ‘Come on through to the kitchen. I’ll put the kettle on.’

  Mike had taken all the kids to the cinema, so it was unusually quiet.

  ‘Are you still at school, Tracey?’

  ‘Not likely,’ she said with a scornful glance. ‘I left as soon as I was fifteen. I’m an apprentice hairdresser now.’

  Just then, Mike and the children came back and into the kitchen.

  ‘Who’s she?’ asked Alfie, pointing at Tracey.

  ‘It’s rude to
point, little feller,’ Ronnie told him off.

  ‘This is Tracey,’ I said. ‘She’s learning to be a hairdresser.’

  ‘Is Tracey coming to live here?’ asked Sheena.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is she going to sleep in our room?’ I could see that Sheena was eager to have an older girl in the house, to learn about hair, make-up and fashions. She was taking a close interest in Tracey’s bangles.

  ‘No, she’s having the little room to herself.’

  Tracey settled in well enough, though she only really communicated with Sheena, who seemed to idolise her, and was always following her around. If Tracey sat on the patio, Sheena came to join her. If Tracey flounced off up to her bedroom, Sheena followed her there, though Tracey often didn’t let her in. Then I’d have a tearful nine-year-old would-be-teenager following me around for the rest of the day.

  ‘Why does Tracey close her door?’ asked Sheena. ‘Nobody else does.’

  ‘Because she’s nearly grown up and she needs some time to herself,’ I explained. ‘I expect you might feel the same when you’re fifteen.’

  Our teenager’s social worker was a real harridan; a strict woman who stood no nonsense. But she was also caring and understood that Tracey had issues, whatever they were. We never did find out her background story – what had happened to her through her childhood and why she came into care with us. Nobody told us anything. But Tracey and her social worker generally got on all right, and the woman seemed to have a good influence on her, and gave us wise advice too when we asked for it.

  Tracey used to spend ages in the bathroom each morning, getting ready for her day at the hairdresser’s. There was always a queue of children wanting to get at their toothbrushes for a quick teeth-clean before going off to school. They would all be shouting, ‘Come on, Tracey’, and ‘Hurry up’ and ‘What are you doing in there?’ But nothing flustered Tracey. She would come out when she was ready and not before.

  Rather than have a confrontation with her about it, we relocated some of the children’s wash-things, so that they were in the downstairs cloakroom on school mornings.

  Some days, she was a pleasant, willing member of the household and even quite helpful with drying the dishes or just playing with the children, if she was in the mood. But she could be very difficult too. Rebellious, surly, self-obsessed . . . a typical teenager as I look at it now, but then it was difficult to know how best to deal with her. I suppose all parents of teenagers say the same.

  Of course she had her own life, outside the house and her job. She had a group of friends who used to go out together on Friday nights. Sometimes they would go dancing, or to a party or the cinema.

  One Friday night there was a fair in town, so they all went off to the fairground, done up to the nines, thick with make-up and short on dress-fabric. But it wasn’t quite indecent, so we let it pass. After all, she was only three or four months away from her sixteenth birthday, when she would be out on her own, outside of the care system, with no one to tell her what to do or not to do. I couldn’t imagine how she would cope with all the bills and anxieties of everyday life on her own, but that was the way it was. Perhaps she would let us help her find a suitable place and set herself up, when the time came.

  She popped her head round the kitchen door. ‘I’m going now. Byee.’

  ‘Have a good time,’ said Mike.

  ‘And be back by ten o’clock,’ we said to her as she left.

  ‘OK, ten o’clock.’

  Well, ten o’clock came and went, then ten fifteen. We didn’t want her walking back on her own from the bus stop that late at night so Mike drove to the stop to meet the last bus.

  I heard him turn into the drive so I went to the door, but no Tracey. ‘Not on the bus?’ I asked him.

  ‘No.’ He came into the hall.

  I was just about to close the front door behind him, when I heard a strange noise. I turned on the outside light and there, spread-eagled on top of the rockery, with her knickers around her ankles, was Tracey . . . with a man.

  I immediately shut the door, and stood with my back to it. I must have turned pale, which is hard for me as I don’t have much colour at the best of times.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ asked Mike. ‘Have you seen a ghost?’

  ‘No. It’s worse than that. It’s Tracey.’ And then I saw the funny side of it and dissolved into a fit of the giggles.

  ‘What on earth do you mean?’ He still had his serious face on.

  ‘Outside . . . on the rockery . . . Tracey . . .’

  Mike didn’t wait to hear the rest. He opened the door, took in the scene and bellowed at the top of his voice: ‘Tracey! Pull your knickers up and get in here immediately.’

  There was some scrabbling about as they knocked a couple of stones off the rockery in their haste. I couldn’t imagine why they had chosen that, of all places, when there was a perfectly good patch of grass on the other side, which surely would have been more comfortable. Or perhaps they were into a bit of masochism . . . I didn’t dare think about it.

  In they both came, the man looking rather sheepish and she with her defiant face on.

  I don’t know what made Mike say it – we could have been had up for suggesting it, but I heard him say in a scolding voice: ‘If you want to do something like that, you’ve got a perfectly good bedroom upstairs to do it in.’

  There was a moment of stunned silence, in which we all digested that, then Tracey went into her affronted voice.

  ‘If you think I’m that sort of a girl! . . . I’d never do it in your house,’ she said. ‘That wouldn’t be right.’

  I was about to respond about it not being right anyway, but I stopped myself just in time. It wouldn’t have got us anywhere at that moment.

  ‘Come into the sitting room,’ Mike said to them both, as if it were an order.

  They were on the defensive by then, understandably, and I think the young man, who must have been in his early twenties, was quite surprised that he’d even been allowed into the house at all.

  We then had this inane conversation, as if he was our prospective son-in-law or something.

  ‘Where do you work?’ Mike asked him.

  ‘The fairgrounds,’ he replied. ‘Wherever we go. Mostly across the Midlands.’

  It became increasingly bizarre as this young man, whose name we discovered was Lee, began to tell us about his work. Tracey was mostly a spectator, hanging on his every word. We were encountering a new world, as he proudly explained and taught us some of the tricks of his trade.

  ‘Palming,’ he said. ‘Now that’s something we all have to learn to do.’

  ‘What’s palming?’ I asked, betraying my total ignorance.

  ‘Well, it’s . . . Say you are going on a ride that costs sixpence, and you gave me half a crown. You would need two shillings change, wouldn’t you? Now let me show you what I do.’ He searched each of the pockets of his jeans in turn and seemed not to find what he was looking for.

  ‘Have you got any change, mate?’ he asked Mike.

  ‘Yes, will this do?’ Mike put a handful of change from his pocket onto the coffee table and Lee took it.

  ‘So I would count out loud, in front of you, the two shillings in small coins in my open hand, like this, so that you can see it.’ He deliberately counted out the change. ‘Then I would hand it over to you. But what you haven’t noticed is that when I turn my hand over to give you your change, that you’ve already seen, I’ve put my thumb over a couple of the coins, so only the rest will go into your hand.’ He demonstrated this. ‘You’re not likely to stop and check your change, when you’ve already watched me count it out before I gave it to you. So that way, I can make a bit of extra money every time.’

  ‘That’s so clever,’ Tracey said with admiration.

  It wasn’t what I was thinking, but I had to keep that to myself. I briefly exchanged glances with Mike, who raised his eyebrows. ‘Don’t show AJ that one,’ I said.

  And Lee didn’t sto
p there. He showed us a couple more tricks.

  ‘Clever, ain’t it?’ he gloated.

  It was gone midnight by the time Lee left. Tracey disappeared up to bed, so Mike closed the sitting-room door behind her. We just took one look at each other and burst into laughter. ‘What an education that was,’ I said. ‘Did he give you back your change?’

  ‘Oh, no!’ he spluttered. ‘And what a little madam that Tracey is.’ We both laughed again. ‘But I’ll tell you what . . . I don’t think I’ll ever look at that rockery in the same way again!’

  21

  The Porn Film Kids

  Sure enough, as soon as she was sixteen, Tracey was kicked out to fend for herself. Not by us of course. We offered to keep her a little while longer, without being paid, if she wanted to stay. That would have given her time for us to help her find a good, clean bed-sit. But Social Services said they wouldn’t allow it as it was their job to resettle her.

  However, when the day came, Tracey snubbed us all. The lure of the fairground had won her over. She packed all her stuff, said her carefree goodbyes, went out of the front door and into the heavily tattooed arms of Lee, the fairground man. Without a backward glance, she disappeared down the road in Lee’s old banger and we never heard from her again.

  The phone went just after breakfast on a Friday morning. I always thought it was going to be somebody new coming to join us. But not today.

  ‘Alfie’s mother has remarried and her new husband wants her to have Alfie back,’ said the Social Services voice.

  ‘That sounds as if it’s the new husband who wants him, rather than his mother.’

  ‘Does it?’ asked the voice. ‘I’m afraid I couldn’t tell you.’

  These Social Services staff are taught to be economical with the truth.

  ‘They’ll collect him at eleven o’clock tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Right, I’ll tell him tonight and make sure he’s all packed up and ready in time tomorrow.’

  We had met this man when the couple had been to visit Alfie about six weeks before. Alfie hardly knew his mother, so it was a tricky meeting, but the man who was now Alfie’s stepfather seemed very kind and interested in him, so I was glad to hear that he’d been approved. I was still concerned about his mother, who seemed such a cold, aloof woman, but perhaps that was just a form of nervousness. I hoped so.